Service differentiation based incentive mechanism for P2P streaming in hybrid overlay network

In Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks, an incentive mechanism is a necessary component to deal with the free-riding behavior. The challenge is that direct reciprocal incentives; e.g., tit-for-tat, which consider the cooperation of peers in a pair-wise manner, are not suited with P2P streaming. In this paper, we propose a new service differentiation mechanism to provide a redistribution incentive for P2P streaming in a hybrid overlay network. The contribution of a peer can be measured from the number of video sub-streams that it uploads to other peers. By sending one request message, the number of sub-streams that each peer can retrieve is varied by its contribution level. An altruistic peer thus has to send less request messages and will experience smoother video quality than a selfish peer. Through simulations, we demonstrate that our solution can provide service differentiation among peers with better streaming quality than the tit-for-tat scheme.